Talk: Love and loss in mid-century multicultural Stepney

Talk: Love and loss in mid-century multicultural Stepney

Join Dr Rob Waters (University of Sussex) for this talk focusing on local educationalist Edith Ramsay, who lived and worked in Stepney during the 1940s and 1950s and became deeply involved with the transnational lives of Stepney’s African, Caribbean and South Asian populations. The letters in her archive (held here at Tower Hamlets Archives) reveal lives disrupted by war, illness and poverty, but also give an intimate insight into convivial life and love in Stepney, and its identity as a ...

Join Dr Rob Waters (University of Sussex) for this talk focusing on local educationalist Edith Ramsay, who lived and worked in Stepney during the 1940s and 1950s and became deeply involved with the transnational lives of Stepney’s African, Caribbean and South Asian populations. The letters in her archive (held here at Tower Hamlets Archives) reveal lives disrupted by war, illness and poverty, but also give an intimate insight into convivial life and love in Stepney, and its identity as a historic multicultural centre. Free, no booking required. This event forms part of the events programme for our exhibition, A necessary fiction.

Exhibition: A necessary fictionOctober 2017 - 20 January 2018Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives

A new exhibition of artwork by ceramicist Basil Olton exploring the untold history of anti-imperialist black activism in interwar London. The work is inspired by Chris Braithwaite, also known as Chris Jones, a resident of Stepney, trade unionist and founder of the Colonial Seamen’s Association who worked and organised in the East End during the 1930s and 1940s.